St Edward's Hospital

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SJ95SE 1798-/5/10009

CHEDDLETON CHEDDLETON St Edward's Hospital

II

Psychiatric hospital, built as the North Staffordshire Asylum. c1895-1899 to 1893 competition winning designs by Giles, Gough and Trollope. Wall Grange faced bricks with red sandstone dressings and cill and floor bands. Slated gabled roofs with tall brick chimney stacks; central bay tower has an ogee cupola with weathervane. Echelon plan of four pavilions stepped back each side and linked by corridors to a central service core including the administration block, recreation hall and water tower. Jacobean style. Mostly two storeys. Symmetrical administration block of two storeys and attics: five windows. Projecting outer bays and slightly projecting central bay. Entrance, in central five-storey tower bay, with projecting sandstone portico having a central round-arched doorway with radial fanlight and two-leaf panelled timber doors. Portico surmounted by a balustrade to two storeys of canted bay windows, the uppermost with carved and patterned aprons; above, two stories of two-light windows, the upper with enriched aprons. Each facade of the tower terminates with a brick pediment set with a clock face. Flanking bays of paired sashes to each floor, the attic under small gables. Outer bays have canted sash bay windows to ground and first floors and paired sashes attic ashes under large gables. Pavilions in a similar but simplified style. Water tower, set in central courtyard, of seven storeys on a two-storey square plinth, boldly chamfered to octagonal. Extensively corbelled out on two stages on top two storeys and finished by gablets to broader sides; two-light mullioned windows inset into broader sides and smaller two-light windows to final stages. Faceted conical slated roof.

Interior: Board Room has shallow moulded panels and cornice; stone chimneypiece. Recreation hall has a hammerbeam roof, mostly now with a false ceiling, and a stage. History: St Edward's was the 3rd Staffordshire Asylum and is a good example of a medium size mature echelon plan by the architects who were the first to build an asylum of this sort in 1880. G T Hine, Consulting Architect to the Commissioners in Lunacy, described St Edward's in a 1901 RIBA Journal article as "the best, in my opinion, of Messrs. Giles, Gough and Trollope's designs". It was built to house 800 patients, the western half housing females, the eastern male and divided into Infirm, Recent and Active sections with male and female blocks running across the back to the south of workshops and a laundry.

The water tower was first included in the statutory list on 15 December 1986.

Listing NGR: SJ9732053485